Murder Off Stage

Jessie Beckett is a former Vaudeville performer, now an assistant script girl for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. When the couple goes to New York for several weeks, Jessie accompanies them. It gives her time to catch up with an old friend, Adele Astaire. She knew Adele and her brother, Freddy, as children on the Vaudeville circuit. Now Adele’s fame opens doors—and nets Jessie second-row tickets to a hot Broadway play, Rules of Engagement. From those seats, Jessie witnesses the play’s leading man, Allen Crenshaw, being shot dead by leading lady Norah Rose, using a stage gun that was loaded with (unbeknownst to Norah, Jessie is certain) real bullets. When detective Benjamin Quinn admits that this is his first murder investigation, Jessie uses his adoration of Adele to inveigle her way into the case. With Adele’s help and her own knowledge of the theater world, Jessie is able to uncover the history of a murder with roots in the past.